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89-490: During the 1960s Lynda Benglis began her career by working for the Bykert Gallery as a secretary before launching her own successful artistic career; and during the 1970s Mary Boone began her career by working for the Bykert Gallery as a secretary before opening her own successful gallery. 40°45′49″N 73°58′31″W  /  40.763555°N 73.97537°W  / 40.763555; -73.97537 This article about

178-401: A Freudian sign of power, it does not cover her female identity and still emphasizes a female inferiority. Rosalind Krauss and other Artforum personnel attacked Benglis's work in the following month's issue of Artforum describing the advertisement as "exploitative" and "brutalizing". Critic Cindy Nemser of The Feminist Art Journal dismissed the advertisement as well, claiming that

267-409: A 20-minute silence – a precedent to Klein's later monochrome paintings and to the work of minimal musicians , particularly La Monte Young 's drone music and John Cage's 4′33″ . The Symphony is rarely performed. Composer and performer Roland Dahinden said that "You can’t really do a full rehearsal of something like this" because "It’s too hard. Everyone would just die." The first performance

356-399: A French version of Pop Art , the aim of the group was stated as 'Nouveau Réalisme—new ways of perceiving the real' [ Nouveau Réalisme nouvelles approches perceptives du réel ]. A large retrospective was held at Krefeld , Germany, January 1961, followed by an unsuccessful opening at Leo Castelli Gallery , New York, in which Klein failed to sell a single painting. He stayed with Rotraut at

445-446: A book, a musical composition—but then would take away the expected content of that form (paintings without pictures, a book without words, a musical composition without in fact composition) leaving only a shell, as it were. In this way he tried to create for the audience his "Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility". Instead of representing objects in a subjective, artistic way, Klein wanted his subjects to be represented by their imprint:

534-802: A building or structure in Manhattan is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This New York museum-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to an art display, art museum or gallery in the United States is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Lynda Benglis Lynda Benglis (born October 25, 1941) is an American sculptor and visual artist known especially for her wax paintings and poured latex sculptures. She maintains residences in New York City, Santa Fe, New Mexico , Kastellorizo , Greece, and Ahmedabad , India. Benglis

623-594: A country that has played a major role in her life and vision: Greece . The exhibition Lynda Benglis: In the Realm of the Senses unites 36 of the artist’s singular creations, spanning half a century from 1969 onwards. The Nasher Sculpture Center 's 2022 summer exhibition titled Lynda Benglis "highlights three bodies of work in media as diverse as traditional bronze and decorative glitter." The exhibition highlights some of Benglis's more recent artistic creations. Benglis created

712-562: A disdain of convention. Klein had studied judo in Japan between 1952 and 1954, and also displayed an interest in Zen Buddhism . According to Berggruen, he used ritual as a means not to attain belief, but rather as a forum through which to reach abstraction—transcending worldly vestiges temporarily, and returning to earth as a new being. Recently my work with color has led me, in spite of myself, to search little by little, with some assistance (from

801-462: A globe, 3D reliefs of areas of France and dowels which he hung from the ceiling as rain. He also stuck sponges to canvases and painted dinner plates. Many of these works were later manufactured as editioned multiples after his death. In Blue Obelisk , a project that he had failed to realise in 1958, but that finally happened in 1983, he appropriated the Place de la Concorde by shining blue spotlights onto

890-409: A guise of compensatory hyper-masculinity and heroic bravado. By adopting a phallus, Benglis physically and symbolically muddies the distinction made between these two types of gender performativity and ultimately overturns them, resulting in a positive assertion of femininity's sexual and cultural power. Artist Barbara Wagner claims that Benglis shows that even with the appropriation of the phallus as

979-464: A loose post-impressionist style, while his mother was a leading figure in Art informel , and held regular soirées with other leading practitioners of this Parisian abstract movement. Klein received no formal training in art, but his parents exposed him to different styles. His father was a figurative style painter, while his mother had an interest in abstract expressionism. From 1942 to 1946, Klein studied at

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1068-501: A main figure in contemporary art. Not only did it show her vast amount of her work, it showed her enthusiasm to take on charged subjects. The exhibition focused on the 1960s and 1970s, when her work was most involved with the link between painting and sculpture. It included the lozenge-shaped wall pieces of built up multicolored wax layers that Benglis started making in 1966 with which she honored Jackson Pollock 's famous drip methods. It also included her knotted bowtie shaped wall reliefs of

1157-522: A mirror when no one is looking, and then magnifies it threefold through repetition. In this way, she blocks the potential interpretation of her image and emotional state being present for others. One of her own more noted videos is Female Sensibility (1973), which shows the artist kissing and licking the face of fellow artist Marilyn Lenkowsky. Many other of Benglis's earlier solo films are highly technically manipulated, edited, and re-taped, thus blending present and past video sequences and selves to enhance

1246-461: A monochromatic gold painting, sold for $ 21 million at Christie's. FC1 (Fire Color 1) (1962), a nearly 10-foot (3.0 m)-long panel created with a blowtorch, water and two models, sold for $ 36,482,500 at Christie's on 8 May 2012. The record for the most expensive of his paintings was reached by Le Rose du Bleu (RE 22) , who sold by $ 36,753,200 at Christie's London, on 27 June 2012. In 2013, Klein's Sculpture Éponge Bleue Sans Titre, SE 168 ,

1335-402: A progression undergone by the artist from directed to director, finishing with her writing copyright information juxtaposed to her own image. In this way, she reclaims and maintains control of her image, a feminist act for a female artist. Similarly, On Screen shows the artist making faces at the camera in recursive layers of video. She performs expressions reminiscent of ones that people make in

1424-660: A series of prints as part of a collaboration with master printer Stan Baden with the Print Research Institute of North Texas at the University of North Texas . During the 1970s, Benglis engaged in dialogues relating to the feminist movement through her art by pioneering a radical body of video work made up of fifteen videos. She turned to video art in 1971 in order to explore a media that could more easily communicate her feminist politics. Benglis's performance-based videos confront issues of gender and identity by referencing

1513-514: A sort of mosaic. From the reactions of the audience, [Klein] realized that...viewers thought his various, uniformly colored canvases amounted to a new kind of bright, abstract interior decoration. Shocked at this misunderstanding, Klein knew a further and decisive step in the direction of monochrome art would have to be taken...From that time onwards he would concentrate on one single, primary color alone: blue. The next exhibition, 'Proposte Monocrome, Epoca Blu' (Proposition Monochrome; Blue Epoch) at

1602-412: A strongly visual culture, offering a critique of television as a medium as well as the potential truthfulness of any image. Benglis completed four other videos in 1972, namely Noise , Document , Home Tapes Revised , and On Screen . All feature her recursive screen technique. Document and On Screen feature particularly strong feminist themes, and both feature the artist directly. Document features

1691-534: Is featured) at the Cannes Film Festival on 11 May 1962. Two more heart attacks followed, the second of which killed him on 6 June 1962. Thomas McEvilley , in an essay submitted to Artforum in 1982, classified Klein as an early, though enigmatic, postmodernist artist. A sort of parody of Klein's Anthropometry performance is featured in the 1961 film Wise Guys (original title: Les Godelureaux ) directed by Claude Chabrol . The Yves Klein archive

1780-563: Is housed in Phoenix, Arizona , where his widow Rotraut Klein-Moquay has a home. On 8 December 2017, Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers released the lead single from their thirteenth studio album Resistance is Futile , International Blue . The song was inspired by Klein, particularly the titular International Klein Blue. The Manics' bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire told the Quietus ""There

1869-402: Is ringing." The straightforward nature of these statements stands in contrast to the confusion created by the recursive screens. The viewer has no way of knowing if the phone is ringing while the artist is filming the final video, or when she was filming Morriss in the very bottom layer, or the layer in between. The warped sense of time and space works to question the privilege of visuality in such

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1958-599: Is the eldest of five children. Benglis attended McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana . She earned a BFA degree in 1964 from Newcomb College in New Orleans , which was then the women's college of Tulane University , where she studied ceramics and painting. Following graduation, she taught third grade at Jefferson Parish, in Louisiana. In 1964, Benglis moved to New York. Here she came in contact with many of

2047-481: Is traditionally termed "The Work of Art." I wish to play with human feeling, with its "morbidity" in a cold and ferocious manner. Only very recently I have become a sort of gravedigger of art (oddly enough, I am using the very terms of my enemies). Some of my latest works have been coffins and tombs. During the same time I succeeded in painting with fire, using particularly powerful and searing gas flames, some of them measuring three to four meters high. I use these to bathe

2136-484: The Artforum ad. One of her original ideas for the advertisement had been for her and collaborative partner Robert Morris to work together as a double pin-up, but eventually found that using a double dildo was sufficient as she found it to be "both male and female." Morris, too, put out an advertisement for his work in that month's Artforum which featured himself in full " butch " S&M regalia. In this unmaking of

2225-511: The Artforum cover, each entitled Smile , one for each of the Artforum editors who wrote in to complain about her ad. In 2019, The New York Times cited the work as one of the 25 works of art that defined the contemporary age. Benglis's work was greatly neglected for a long time. However, in 2009, a 40-year retrospective organized by the Irish Museum of Modern Art served to recognize her career. The exhibit showed her in her true light as

2314-664: The Bykert Gallery before moving on to work at the Paula Cooper Gallery . In 1979 she met her life partner, Anand Sarabhai , the son of her hosts on a trip she made to Ahmedabad , India. Sarabhai died in February 2013. Benglis's work is noted for an unusual blend of organic imagery and confrontation with newer media incorporating influences such as Barnett Newman and Andy Warhol . Her early work used materials such as beeswax before moving on to large polyurethane pieces in

2403-457: The Chelsea Hotel for the duration of the exhibition; and, while there, he wrote the "Chelsea Hotel Manifesto", a proclamation of the "multiplicity of new possibilities." In part, the manifesto declared: At present, I am particularly excited by "bad taste." I have the deep feeling that there exists in the very essence of bad taste a power capable of creating those things situated far beyond what

2492-720: The Iris Clert Gallery in May 1957, became a seminal happening. To mark the opening, 1,001 blue balloons were released and blue postcards were sent out using IKB stamps that Klein had bribed the postal service to accept as legitimate. Concurrently, an exhibition of tubs of blue pigment and fire paintings was held at Galerie Collette Allendy. For his next exhibition at the Iris Clert Gallery (April 1958), Klein chose to show nothing whatsoever, called La spécialisation de la sensibilité à l'état matière première en sensibilité picturale stabilisée, Le Vide ( The Specialization of Sensibility in

2581-831: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art , the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art , the High Museum , Albright-Knox Art Gallery , New Orleans Museum of Art , the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , Museum of Modern Art , Corcoran Gallery of Art , Whitney Museum of American Art , the Walker Art Center , Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Victoria and others. Mary Beth Edelson 's Some Living American Women Artists / Last Supper (1972) appropriated Leonardo da Vinci ’s The Last Supper , with

2670-450: The "authenticity of the pure idea." This colour, reminiscent of the lapis lazuli used to paint the Madonna's robes in medieval paintings, was to become known as International Klein Blue (IKB). The paintings were attached to poles placed 20 cm (8 in) away from the walls to increase their spatial ambiguities. All 11 of the canvases were priced differently. The buyers would go through

2759-570: The "extravagant" are in full agreement with Baroque poetics. Throughout 2016, the Bergen Assembly in Bergen, Norway presented a cycle of events, publications, and exhibitions on the artistic practice of Lynda Benglis. Curated by Rhea Dall and Kristine Siegel, PRAXES Center for Contemporary Art. The Government of Puebla presented the work of Lynda Benglis as the second temporary exhibition, "Cuerpos, Materia y Alma: Las Esculturas de Lynda Benglis", at

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2848-590: The 1970s and later to gold-leaf, zinc, and aluminum. The validity of much of her work was questioned until the 1980s due to its use of sensuality and physicality. Benglis's latex and polyurethane pours of the late 1960s and 1970s marked her entry into the New York art world. At the same time, she was also working on "small encaustic relief paintings". Like other artists such as Yves Klein , Benglis's work resembled Jackson Pollock 's flinging and dripping methods of painting. Works such as Fallen Painting (1968) inform

2937-403: The 1970s and some of her videos. Her work from the 1980s and 1990s was also shown, represented by a few of her famous pleats, which involved her spraying liquid metal onto chicken wire skeletons, and two videos from each of the decades. In the stateside versions of the show more works from the 1980s and 1990s were shown including her ceramics. These pieces were made of clay and hand molded so that

3026-482: The Baroque ", at Thomas Brambilla gallery . The exhibition included a series of large scale marble Torsos specially made for the show. " Benglis and the Baroque" explored Benglis's long-held interest in Baroque sculpture; much like Gianlorenzo Bernini, Benglis seeks to freeze the intensity of the moment and merge beauty and sensuality in spectacular frozen gestures. Benglis's attention to materials and ongoing research into

3115-509: The Gallery Apollinaire, Milan, (January 1957), featured 11 identical blue canvases, using ultramarine pigment suspended in a synthetic resin 'Rhodopas', described by Klein as "The Medium". Discovered with the help of Edouard Adam, a Parisian paint dealer, the optical effect retained the brilliance of the pigment which, when suspended in linseed oil, tended to become dull. Klein later deposited a Soleau envelope for this recipe to maintain

3204-605: The IKB paintings being uniformly coloured, Klein experimented with various methods of applying the paint; firstly different rollers and then later sponges, created a series of varied surfaces. This experimentalism would lead to a number of works Klein made using naked female models covered in blue paint and dragged across or laid upon canvases to make the image, using the models as "living brushes". This type of work he called Anthropometry . Other paintings in this method of production include "recordings" of rain that Klein made by driving around in

3293-610: The International Museum of the Baroque. The exuberant forms, folds and contortions, variety of materials, textures and colors, in addition to the size of sculptures, expressed a new sensibility in neobaroque art: contemporary, daring and dynamic. Benglis's purpose was to engage in a dialogue with the architecture of Toyo Ito, the Museum's designer, and to express her fondness for Mexico. NEON Organization for Culture and Development organized Lynda Benglis's first solo museum exhibition in

3382-679: The Irish Museum of Modern Art, in Dublin, where it ran through January 24, 2010. It then moved to Le Consortium, in Dijon, France; the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence; and the New Museum, in New York. Between 1969 and 1995 Benglis held over 75 solo exhibitions of her work both in the United States and abroad. Benglis's work is held in collections including The Guggenheim ,

3471-595: The New Yorker magazine, which warned viewers to "prepare to be floored." In 2015, The Hepworth Wakefield presented Benglis's first museum retrospective in the UK. It included over 50 works from across her career, and was structured around the influence of place on Benglis's work, in particular her homes and studios in New York, New Mexico, Greece and India. Curated by Andrew Bonacina, it was described by Guardian critic Adrian Searle as "a revelation." This subsequent survey focused on

3560-691: The Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void ): he removed everything in the gallery space except a large cabinet, painted every surface white, and then staged an elaborate entrance procedure for the opening night: the gallery's window was painted blue, and a blue curtain was hung in the entrance lobby, accompanied by republican guards and blue cocktails. Thanks to an enormous publicity drive, 3,000 people queued up, waiting to be let into an empty room. The art historian Olivier Berggruen situates Klein "as one who strove for total liberation," forming connections between perverse ritual and

3649-465: The Void ), originally published in his 1960 artist's book Dimanche , which apparently shows him jumping off a wall, arms outstretched, towards the pavement. Klein used the photograph as evidence of his ability to undertake unaided lunar travel. In fact, "Saut dans le vide", published as part of a broadside on the part of Klein (the "artist of space") denouncing NASA's own lunar expeditions as hubris and folly,

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3738-602: The accompanying exhibition catalogue, these works reflect the environment in which they were made, the 'sere and windblown' landscape of Santa Fe, New Mexico. As a counterweight to the paper sculptures, Benglis also exhibited "The Fall Caught", a large-scale aluminum work made by applying spray foam instead of strips of handmade paper on the chicken wire armature, as well as a new series of spiraling, hand-built black ceramics called "Elephant Necklace". In December 2016, Lynda Benglis had her very first solo show in Italy, titled " Benglis and

3827-438: The approach with what could be read as a feminist perspective. For this work, Benglis smeared Day-Glo paint across the gallery floor invoking "the depravity of the 'fallen' woman" or, from a feminist perspective, a "prone victim of phallic male desire." In her work Contraband (1969), she removed the use of a canvas altogether and created her work directly on the floor. These brightly colored organic floor pieces work to disrupt

3916-406: The artist is present, which is past, and which of these is therefore truly performing. In Noise (1972) Benglis employs mechanical reproduction and through looped feedback tapes. Throughout Noise , she plays over several generations of similar taped images and soundtracks to introduce increasing amounts of distortion. The conversion of the looped and layered aural and visual components highlights

4005-414: The artist will announce the relation from them to the person from off camera, sometimes calling them multiple different names and labeling them with different, incompatible roles. The viewer becomes distrustful of the narrator, calling into question the role and authority of any voiceover speech. Other statements in this video are descriptions such as "Robin is weaving in the studio downstairs," and "the phone

4094-465: The boundaries of intelligibility, resulting in the disassociation of sound and image. In On Screen (1972) Benglis visually implicates infinite regression of time and space, similarly manipulating generations of videotapes to confound the viewer's sense of time. The sequence of creation, presented as a gendered self-portrait, is heavily obscured by the layered repetition of aural and visual components. Through this exercise of audiovisual desynchronization,

4183-595: The central obelisk. The art critic Pierre Restany , who spoke of how his first meeting with Klein had been fundamental to them both, went on to found the Nouveau Réalisme group with Klein in Klein's studio/apartment on 27 October 1960. Founding members were Arman , Francois Dufrêne, Raymond Hains , Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri , Jean Tinguely , and Jacques Villeglé , with Niki de Saint Phalle , Christo and Gérard Deschamps joining later. Normally seen as

4272-459: The city in exchange for gold. He wanted his buyers to experience The Void by selling them empty space. In his view this experience could only be paid for in the purest material: gold. In exchange, he gave a certificate of ownership to the buyer. As the second part of the piece, performed on the Seine with an art critic in attendance, if the buyer agreed to set fire to the certificate, Klein would throw half

4361-535: The consistent theme of self-reflexivity. Video offers a direct representation of a figure, a history of popular culture, and a way to illustrate bodies interacting in space, making it useful for feminist discourse. Benglis employs various technical manipulations of video as a medium to complicate the boundaries of visual form and highlight mediations of the self, including a recursive technique by filming television screens playing videos that she had filmed previously, often several layers deep. By doing so, she further exposes

4450-430: The creation of these paintings was turned into a kind of performance art —an event in 1960, for example, had an audience dressed in formal evening wear watching the models go about their task while an instrumental ensemble played Klein's 1949 The Monotone Symphony . In the performance piece, Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle ( Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility ) 1959–1962, he offered empty spaces in

4539-417: The curators gave her a main position in the diverse art of the 1970s, a time period that is seen as laying the groundwork for the wide range of expression that continues to grow to this day. Benglis's willingness and ability to mix up gendered tropes with her heroic scales and sparkly colorful finishes while laughing irreverently at views of every moral stripe set her apart from the common customs of feminism and

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4628-426: The exploratory breadth of materials Benglis experimented with over the course of her career: polyurethane foam, glass, enamel, stainless steel, beeswax, and poured latex. It was her first major survey in the UK. Lynda Benglis: Water Sources was the first exhibition centered around the outdoor water fountains that Benglis has developed since the early 1980s. More broadly, this presentation took as its point of departure

4717-484: The feeling of artifice. For instance, in Now (1973) the artist's face is recursively featured, but this time the self-evidencing frame of the television is cropped out. The artist superimposes a video of herself yelling commands such as "Now!" and "Start recording!" over an older video of herself apparently echoing the shout, blurring the line between documentary and performance while also making it difficult to tell which image of

4806-463: The gallery, observing each canvas and purchase the one that was deemed best in their own eyes specifically. Klein's idea was that each buyer would see something unique in the canvas that they bought that other buyers may not have seen. So while each painting visually looked the same, the impact each had on the buyer was completely unique. The show was a critical and commercial success, traveling to Paris, Düsseldorf and London. The Parisian exhibition, at

4895-431: The gold into the river, in order to restore the "natural order" that he had unbalanced by selling the empty space (that was now not "empty" anymore). He used the other half of the gold to create a series of gold-leafed works, which, along with a series of pink monochromes, began to augment his blue monochromes toward the end of his life. Klein is also well known for a composite photograph , Saut dans le vide ( Leap into

4984-438: The heads of notable women artists collaged over the heads of Christ and his apostles. Benglis was among those notable women artists. This image, addressing the role of religious and art historical iconography in the subordination of women, became "one of the most iconic images of the feminist art movement ." Benglis won a Yale-Norfolk Summer School Scholarship in 1963, and a Max Beckmann scholarship in 1965. In 1975 Benglis

5073-573: The image of their absence. He tried to make his audience experience a state where an idea could simultaneously be "felt" as well as "understood". As well as painting flat canvases, Klein produced a series of works throughout his career that blurred the edges between painting and sculpture. He appropriated plaster casts of famous sculptures, such as the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo , by painting them International Klein Blue; he painted

5162-534: The influential artists of the decade, such as Andy Warhol , Donald Judd , Sol LeWitt , Eva Hesse , and Barnett Newman . She went on to study painting at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. There she met the Scottish painter Gordon Hart, who was briefly to be her first husband. Benglis later stated that she married Hart to help him avoid the draft. She also took a job as an assistant to Klaus Kertess at

5251-474: The interest in water and landscape that Benglis has explored throughout the last thirty years of her career. In this new work presented at Cheim & Read Gallery in New York, Benglis turned to handmade paper, which she wrapped around thick wire armatures, often painting the sand-tone surface in bright, metallic colors offset by strokes of deep, coal-based black. At other times the paper was left virtually bare. As Nancy Princenthal writes in her essay published in

5340-701: The interface between inner and outer realities by using and reproducing her own body and its image through video manipulations, interacting with her own image and voice, and confusing the viewer's perception of time and space. Consequently, Benglis's work destabilizes what are traditionally believed to be video's "inherent properties" such as liveness and "real" time, spatial orientation and relations, and separation of creator and creation. In 1971, Benglis began to collaborate with Robert Morris , and produced her first video work, Mumble (1972). Morris's Exchange (1973) also came out of this collaboration. Mumble features figures arranged in space across several screens. Often,

5429-435: The male-dominated minimalism movement with their suggestiveness and openness. The structure of the new medium itself played an important role in addressing questions about female identity in relation to art, pop culture, and dominant feminism movements at the time. In the 1970s, she turned to video as an extension of her sculptural work, producing over a dozen works between 1972 and 1977. Benglis dove into metal casting in

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5518-495: The medium of magazine advertisements as it allowed her complete control of an image rather than allowing it to be run through critical commentary. This series culminated with a particularly controversial one in the November 1974 issue of Artforum featuring Benglis posing with a large plastic dildo and wearing only a pair of sunglasses promoting an upcoming exhibition of hers at the Paula Cooper Gallery . Benglis paid $ 3,000 for

5607-546: The mid 1980s, most notably a series of public fountain projects. Benglis has been a professor or visiting artist at the University of Rochester (1970-1972), Princeton University (1975), University of Arizona (1982), School of Visual Arts (1985-1987). Benglis felt underrepresented in the male-run artistic community and so confronted the "male ethos" in a series of magazine advertisements satirizing pin-up girls , Hollywood actresses, and traditional depictions of nude female models in canonical works of art. Benglis chose

5696-526: The notions of "original self" and "original production" are complicated by the layers of self-images presented simultaneously with layers of "self". In doing so, Benglis emphasizes that video as a medium is based upon mechanical reproduction, thus subverting the classical notion of authenticity and reproduction in fine art. Lynda Benglis's works distributed by the Video Data Bank include: On November 4, 2009, Benglis's first European retrospective opened at

5785-504: The observer, from the translator), for the realization of matter, and I have decided to end the battle. My paintings are now invisible and I would like to show them in a clear and positive manner, in my next Parisian exhibition at Iris Clert's. Later in the year, he was invited to decorate the Gelsenkirchen Opera House , Germany, with a series of vast blue murals, the largest of which were 20 metres by 7 metres. The Opera House

5874-426: The picture showed that Benglis had "so little confidence in her art that she had to resort to kinky cheesecake to push herself over the top." Morris's advertisement, however, generated little commentary, providing evidence for Benglis's view that male artists were encouraged to promote themselves, whereas women were chastised for doing so. Benglis eventually cast five lead sculptures of the dildo that she posed with on

5963-428: The planet, which he then proceeded to sign: With this famous symbolic gesture of signing the sky, Klein had foreseen, as in a reverie, the thrust of his art from that time onwards—a quest to reach the far side of the infinite. In early 1948, Klein was exposed to Max Heindel 's 1909 text The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception and pursued a membership with an American society dedicated to Rosicrucianism . While attending

6052-566: The podcast This is Love released an episode, "Blue," about Klein and his work. A 2021 short novel, Blue Postcards by Douglas Bruton, is built around the life and art of Yves Klein. Alongside works by Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning , Klein's painting RE 46 (1960) was among the top-five sellers at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art sale in May 2006. His monochromatic blue sponge painting sold for $ 4,720,000. Previously, his painting RE I (1958) had sold for $ 6,716,000 at Christie's New York in November 2000. In 2008, MG 9 (1962),

6141-451: The previous years. Yves Peintures anticipated his first two shows of oil paintings, at the Club des Solitaires, Paris, October 1955 and Yves: Proposition monochromes at Gallery Colette Allendy, February 1956. Public responses to these shows, which displayed orange, yellow, red, pink and blue monochromes, deeply disappointed Klein, as people went from painting to painting, linking them together as

6230-428: The rain at 70 miles per hour with a canvas tied to the roof of his car, and canvases with patterns of soot created by scorching the canvas with gas burners. Klein and Arman were continually involved with each other creatively, both as Nouveaux Réalistes and as friends. Both from Nice, the two worked together for many years and Arman even named his son, Yves Arman , after Yves Klein, who was his godfather. Sometimes

6319-462: The sexism of the art world. Her work is also deemed important for its meticulous grounding in process and materials used. Each piece produces its own physical understanding. "They provoke visceral reactions while playfully welcoming open ended associations and ambiguities." In 2011, The New Museum organized a four-decade exhibition of Benglis's sculptural works with supplementary videos, Polaroids, and magazine clippings. The show received high praise in

6408-420: The societal representation and construction of women and their sexuality as well as the interaction between viewer and artist, self and ambiguity. Though Benglis's sculptures reference sexuality through subtly eroticized materials and forms, her video work approaches the subject conceptually and more explicitly. Benglis's interest in human form found in her sculptural work is made present in her videos in through

6497-430: The sound half of the symphony, freezing during the silence". Although Klein had painted monochromes as early as 1949, and held the first private exhibition of this work in 1950, his first public showing was the publication of the artist's book Yves Peintures in November 1954. Parodying a traditional catalogue raisonné , the book featured a series of intense monochromes linked to various cities he had lived in during

6586-582: The surface of the painting in such a way that it registered the spontaneous trace of fire. He moved on to exhibit at the Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, and traveled extensively in the Western U.S. , visiting Death Valley in the Mojave Desert . In 1962, Klein married Rotraut Uecker who gave birth to their son shortly after his death. Klein suffered a heart attack while watching the film Mondo Cane (in which he

6675-509: The technical director of the Spanish judo team. In 1954 Klein wrote a book on judo called Les Fondements du judo . The same year, he settled permanently in Paris and began in earnest to establish himself in the art world. Between 1947 and 1948, Klein conceived his Monotone Symphony (1949, formally Monotone Silence Symphony ) that consisted of a single 20-minute sustained D major chord followed by

6764-481: The tradition of the passive female nude, Benglis was working in dialogue with popular discourse about gender and gender performativity published at the time of its execution. In particular, Benglis appears to be undermining June Wayne 's theory of the "demonic myth" in which males, in assuming their gender identity, are responsible to a similar posturing and performativity as women, but instead of upholding "feminine" values of passivity, modesty, and gentility, they embody

6853-451: The viewers could feel the making of them- the extorting, folding, and throwing of the moist resistant material. Glazes seemed to be flung on in a causal manner, which brings to mind the abstract expressionism movement of art in which Benglis is involved. The ceramic pieces have a handmade quality that effect the senses both desire driven and dismal, while the colors suggest the glitz of commercial culture. Concentrating on Benglis's early work,

6942-410: The École Nationale de la Marine Marchande and the École Nationale des Langues Orientales. At this time, he became friends with Arman (Armand Fernandez) and Claude Pascal and started to paint. At the age of nineteen, Klein and his friends lay on a beach in the south of France, and divided the world between themselves; Arman chose the earth, Pascal, words, while Klein chose the ethereal space surrounding

7031-450: The École Nationale des Langues Orientales Klein began practicing judo . During the years 1948 to 1952, he travelled to Italy, Great Britain, Spain, and Japan. He travelled to Japan in 1953 where he became, at the age of 25, a master at judo receiving the rank of yodan (4th dan /degree black-belt) from the Kodokan , becoming the first European to rise to that rank. Later that year, he became

7120-483: Was a joy to 'International Blue' that we weren't sure we could convey any more, the feeling of being in love with something like Yves Klein, to pass on the joy of that colour and that vividness – we weren't sure if we still had it in us. It sounds quite young." In 2017, the MoMA - and WNYC -produced contemporary art podcast A Piece of Work hosted by Abbi Jacobson had an episode focused on Klein's blue monochromes. In 2018,

7209-663: Was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany . Klein was a pioneer in the development of performance art , and is seen as an inspiration to and as a forerunner of minimal art , as well as pop art . He is known for the development and use of International Klein Blue . Klein was born in Nice , in the Alpes-Maritimes department of France. His parents, Fred Klein and Marie Raymond , were both painters. His father painted in

7298-551: Was a photomontage in which the large tarpaulin, held by artist friends, Klein leaped onto was removed from the final image. Klein's work revolved around a Zen -influenced concept he came to describe as "le Vide" (the Void). Klein's Void is a nirvana-like state that is void of worldly influences; a neutral zone where one is inspired to pay attention to one's own sensibilities, and to "reality" as opposed to "representation". Klein presented his work in forms that were recognized as art—paintings,

7387-589: Was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Kansas City Art Institute . In 2017 The International Sculpture Center awarded artists Lynda Benglis and Tony Cragg for the 2017 Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. Yves Klein Yves Klein ( French: [iv klɛ̃] ; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He

7476-711: Was awarded with a Guggenheim Fellowship . She has also received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts , one in 1979 and the other in 1990. Benglis has been awarded a Minos Beach Art Symposium grant, a grant from the Delphi Art Symposium, a grant from the Olympiad of Art Sculpture Park (Korea), all in 1988. Benglis received a grant from the National Council of Art Administration in 1989. In 2000 Benglis

7565-410: Was born on October 25, 1941, in Lake Charles, Louisiana . She is Greek-American. As a young child and in her early 20s, Benglis often traveled with her grandmother to Greece. She later described these travels as having been important to her work. In her 2015 interview with Ocula Magazine , the artist said that her grandmother was a significant feminist icon for her: Her husband died very early—1955. I

7654-490: Was in a Paris art gallery in 1960, with only ten performing musicians. Singer Sahra Motalebi described it as "The reality is that it’s like a kind of bizarre primordial universe chorus. It’s not like a note you’ve ever heard." Klein himself compared the sound of his symphony to screams. For the first performance in Paris, Klein invited three naked women, whom he called "living brushes", who "covered themselves in his signature deep blue paint and pressed their bodies on paper during

7743-528: Was inaugurated in December 1959. Klein celebrated the commission by travelling to Cascia , Italy, to place an ex-voto offering at the Saint Rita Monastery . "May all that emerges from me be beautiful," he prayed. The offering took the form of a small transparent plastic box containing three compartments; one filled with IKB pigment, one filled with pink pigment, and one with gold leaf inside. The container

7832-490: Was only rediscovered in 1980. Klein's last two exhibitions at Iris Clert's were Vitesse Pure et Stabilité Monochrome ( Sheer Speed and Monochrome Stability ), November 1958, a collaboration with Jean Tinguely , of kinetic sculptures, and Bas-Reliefs dans une Forêt d'Éponges ( Bas-Reliefs in a Sponge Forest ), June 1959, a collection of sponges that Klein had used to paint IKB canvases, mounted on steel rods and set in rocks that he'd found in his parents' garden. Despite

7921-455: Was the first female grandchild—which is very important in Greece, as the women inherit the property. She was my godmother, as well as my grandmother. My grandmother travelled in her forties, and this was unusual and it impacted the way I was. It set a standard for me. Growing up, her father Michael ran a building-materials business. Her mother was from Mississippi and was a preacher's daughter. She

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